When BMW started strapping turbos to its engines, its cars started getting fast. It kind of began with the poster child for the turbo revolution, the people’s champion that was the E9x 335i. The jump from 231hp in the E46 330i to 306hp in the non-M3 E9x flagship was a significant one and improved performance from the respectable low-sixes to the ‘take me seriously’ low-fives. When the aftermarket got hold of it, BMW owners were suddenly privy to the sort of power and performance gains that the NA predecessors could only have dreamed of/achieved with forced induction/stupid amounts of money. And then, suddenly, everything was turbocharged. #BMW-turbo / #BMW / #2016 /

Obviously, there are still plenty of models (the ones that the vast majority of people actually buy) that aren't crazy fast, but when you consider how many sensible models, like the 330d for example, will happily hit 62mph in the mid-fives with minimal fuss, that makes for one seriously rapid line-up. And then there’s the fact that the four-second 0-62 zone is no longer the reserve of the M car.

There are actually so many non-M BMW models that duck below the five-second mark for the 0-62 sprint that I think we might just do a little chart in the next issue because it’s really quite surprising; pretty much anything with the current incarnation of the N63 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 will do it, which means that there’s potentially a whole armada of estates and 4x4s out there that can make most older M cars looks a little limp on the performance front. And now BMW has broken the three-second 0-62 barrier.

It happened with the M6 Competition and M5 30th Anniversary and now it’s the turn of the 7 Series… You can read about the absolutely mental M760Li xDrive (and its even more mental Alpina counterpart, the 4WD B7) in this month’s News pages, but it hits 62mph in just 3.9 seconds, which is frankly insane. When the turbo invasion began, we wondered how long it would be before we saw a 0-62 time in the threes and the answer was not very long at all. For a 7 Series to have the sort of pace that would have not too long ago been the realm of the supercar is astonishing, but that’s progress for you I guess. And as this generation of super fast turbocharged BMWs gets cheaper and cheaper, they’re going to get faster and faster as the likes of you get your hands on them. I can’t wait.